The Marketing Mix – What You Need to Know – Wildcard Friday

By Exclusive ConceptsApril 8, 2011

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It is extremely important for business owners as well as marketers to understand the Marketing Mix so they can correctly manage and plan marketing campaigns of all types. It is crucial to understand your target market to develop an effective and profitable marketing mix for your business.

The marketing mix cannot be developed, let alone be successful unless you have a good idea of who your target market is. The more you know about your market, the better aim you will have for marketing efforts.

So how do you discover your target market? The focus of marketing efforts is people, the goal is to determine which subset of the population may be interested in your particular product.

No one can afford to target everyone. Some businesses say they target anyone interested in their services or homeowners, moms, and all of these are too general.

I’m not saying that you have to exclude people outside your specific market from buying from you, rather directing your marketing dollars on a specific market is more likely to make you money in an affordable, efficient, and effective way to reach potential clients.

Demographic – measurable statistics such as age, income, or occupation

Psychographic – personality, charecteristics, motives and lifestyles

Behaviors – regular users vs. potential users vs non users

You can chooses to segment by either single or multiple variables. There are other ways to determine your target market as well:

Look at your current customer base

Check out your competition

Analyze your product or service

Choose specific demographics listed above

After you figure out who your target market is, its time to figure out your marketing mix. The 4 P’s of the marketing are the variables that marketing managers can control to satisfy their target market.

The Four PP’s are:

Product

Price

Place

Promotion

The product is the tangible object or the intangible service that is being marketed. Product design leads the product attributes as the most important factor, with packaging a close second. When it comes to service reputation and services setup is important.
Other things to consider are: Design, Packaging, Brand, Quality, Features, Sizes, and warranties.

Remember to ask yourself these questions when deciding on a product:

What does the customer want?

What features are a must?

How and when will this product be used?

What does it look like?

Are there variable sizes, colors, etc.?

How is it branded?

How am I different than the competition?

Price is the amount the customer pays for the product or service. The price cannot outweigh the perceived benefits for an individual. If benefits are perceived as greater than the cost, chances of trial and adoption will increase.

Ask yourself these questions when choosing price:

What is the perceived value?

Are there established price points for this product or service?

Is the customer price sensitive?

What discounts should be offered and when?

How will you compare with your competition?

You have to know how your target market perceives price. Some markets think something can not be good quality if it is affordable, while others think the a low price is the best value, no matter what price is a crucial factor.

Place is the location or locations where a product can be purchased. This could be a physical store or an online store. Place is important because it provides utility to a customer, and can sometimes be a deciding factor because of convenience.

Place is important for services as well, potential customers need to either be in your area of business or feel comfortable with you being miles away. If that is the case, trust is almost usually a deciding factor in their decision.

Questions to consider when deciding on price are:

Where do people look for your product or service?

How can you access the right distribution channels?

Do you need a sales force?

What do your competitors do and what can you learn from them to differentiate?

Promotion represents the communications a marketer may use in the marketplace to increase awareness about the product or service and its benefits to a target market.

There are 4 parts of promotion:
Advertising, Public Relations, Personal Selling, and

Correctly marketing a product to the market is the way to make them aware of your product or service, and increases the chance of them adopting it.

Remember to use the 4 P’s the next time you are planning a marketing campaign or working on a holistic marketing plan!